Just spitballing, but I think it'd be pretty cool if the game had an optional "last stand" mechanic for skirmishes; something like a heroic surge of strength when the odds are against you, but the effort you exert (and the injuries you get) will kill you. Some initial thoughts on how this might work (not exhaustive by any means):

• Activation condition: doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be able to activate it when everyone is in good health. So it might require one or more of the following:
  • Incapacitated or Dying.
  • A critical strike of a particular severity.
  • Companions/allies Incapacitated, Dying, or suffered critical strikes
  • A certain number of adversaries who can fight (not incapacitated or dying)
  • Something related to the "how will your character die?" bit from 20 questions
• Power-up conditions: maybe some or all of the above conditions aren't required, but make the "last stand" option stronger; the worse your situation, the better the last stand.
• Possible benefits of last stand:
  • Improved attacks. Some options:
    • Maybe all successful attacks are treated as critical strikes
    • Maybe all successful attacks against minions just kill them (or maybe the last stand player can choose between unconscious and killed)
    • Success assumed; all successes treated as bonus successes
    • Ignores strife and being compromised
  • Ignore damage (kinda the point, right? Raises the question of--what's the point of attacking you?
    • Maybe they raise the TN of certain checks, like fitness checks for movement; some enemies can attack you to slow you, giving others the chance to maneuver, pursue other goals, or escape (if they can stand the shame )
    • Honor or glory bump for adversaries who try to fight (assuming they don't run)
  • Glory/honor boost to the last stand character
  • You're alive until the end of the scene/skirmish, but you die at the end
• Cannot clash
• PC only

What do folks think? Anything you'd add or remove?

Definitely wouldn't be suitable for all campaigns, but could be cool for some!

We have an Advantage like this every samurai gets in our 4.5 homebrew. It is called Death Before Dishonor and it allows the PC to do one thing with absolute certainty, no matter how impossible it is, at the cost of dying during or immediately after the act. You can lift a castle gate to have the rest of the party escape, you can have a heroic last stand and butcher half an army all by yourself, or you can cripple an Oni Lord with a suicide charge. No rolls or stats involved, you get what you want, but you will also die and nothing can help that.

It is really just a reminder/clarification that this is indeed a thing, but we found it useful to have this spelled out on the character sheet .

4 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Death Before Dishonor

This is freaking genius.

Deathwatch - the 40k Space Marine RPG - had a similar mechanic; when burning your last "I'm not really dead, honest" fate point, you could instead accept that you were dead, but just not yet - and for a period of time you got immunity to any critical result which didn't explicitely remove the limb, a fate point a turn, immunity to most fear/pinning/psych effects and a few other benefits I forget.

To an extent, the Hida Defender already has this - being able to ignore being dead for as long as his void points hold out - but a properly ruled, school/clan independent 'heroic sacrifice' mechanic makes sense.

Atomaki's Death Before Dishonour rule is very characterful and very simple, and hence I approve; you get one task which can broadly be defined by a single check, and you automatically pass but are killed in the process.

If the level of success matters, I'd use something like your honour or glory ranks, or the sum thereof: so the Oni Lord above would take an irreducable critical of about severity 8 - assuming rank 4 or thereabouts in each, or you'd do 8 casualties and panic to the enemy cohort (coincidentally enough to singlehandedly complete a 'storm a position' objective).